Family Tree
by I'vebeenLOKI'Dyetagain
Summary: Billy Kaplan and Tommy Sheperd try to figure out their family tree. Turns out Magneto's not the only supervillain they're related to, and the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver aren't the only superheroes. Billy fanboys, Tommy decides to change his name, Billy gets carried away, and Tommy gets exasperated.


"_I have __**tried **__to be supportive of Billy's connecting with his family, because god knows he supported me through the Kree-Skrull jamboree that was __**my **__family reunion. But you know what's even __**crazier **__than a Kree-Skrull jamboree? __**The Maximoff family!" **_-Teddy Altman (Hulkling) _**The Children's Crusade #3**_

**I was rereading _The Children's Crusade_, and I saw this statement by our favorite Hulkling, and I thought: "Just how crazy _is _Billy and Tommy's family?" **

**I contemplated that. This is the result XD**

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><p><em>Rriii—! <em>Tommy's cellphone started to ring, and he whipped it out of his pocket, checking the number, before dashing off to the home of the caller.

Phones had a split-second lag; it drove Tommy nuts (as if he didn't already have to wait long enough for people to respond). Speaking face-to-face was preferable, not matter _who _the caller was.

In this case, though, it was just his brother.

"What's up, bro?" Tommy asked, skidding into his brother's bedroom as his cellphone finished its first ring with a trilling _iiiiingg! _Rolling his eyes, Tommy pressed the button on his phone to end the call, slipping it back into his pocket. "You only call me when you need advice on what shoes to buy. And like always, my advice is: if you can't run in 'em comfortably for a long period of time, then don't buy 'em."

It was Billy's turn to roll his eyes. "Actually, I called you because I'm going to figure out and write down our family tree," he said, holding up a piece of paper and a pen. "I thought you would want to help."

"A family tree?" Tommy asked skeptically, raising a silver-white eyebrow as he stood there, shifting his weight from foot to foot and brushing a hand back through his hair, as was his restless way, constantly fidgeting.

"Yeah, it'll be fun," Billy grinned. He grabbed a clipboard that he'd tossed on his bed, clipping the paper to it and putting the pen to the page, beginning to scribble down names, starting with his own and Tommy's. "Now, we're the sons of the Scarlet Witch, so of course that means that Pietro is our uncle, and Magneto is our grandfather. Pietro married Crystal, an inhuman, which makes her our aunt, and then together they had a daughter, Luna, which makes her our cousin. And Magneto also had another daughter, Lorna, who is Wanda and Pietro's half-sister, which also makes her our aunt.

"Now, if we're the spiritual sons of the Scarlet Witch, since she was married to Vision, that, by extension, makes us the spiritual sons of the Vision," he continued, moving to the other side of the page to add their dad's side. "And since the Vision was built by Ultron, that makes Ultron our grandfather. And since Ultron was built by Henry Pym, that makes Giant-Man/Goliath/Ant-Man/Yellowjacket/Wasp our great grandfather, and since he was married to Janet van Dyne, aka Wasp, that would make her our great grandmother. They were two of the original Avengers!" He glanced up at Tommy, grinning a huge fanboy grin, brown eyes alight. "Like, the very first Avenger team _ever!" _

Tommy rolled his eyes again. Billy was definitely fanboying.

"You forgot that Ultron also made Victor Mancha," Tommy pointed out, sitting down lightly on the bed next to his brother. "You know, the robot from the Runaways, remember? Which would make Victor the Vision's brother—or half-brother, whatever, I don't know, we're talking about robots here!—which would make Victor our uncle."

Billy blinked, snorted, and then raised a dark eyebrow, but nevertheless added Victor to the tree. "He's our uncle? LOL."

"And also," Tommy continued, smirking slightly, "Molly is our honorary cousin—because if I didn't say that she was our honorary cousin then she would 'beat me up and stomp on my head'—she really said that, and she could do it, too!" Tommy's green eyes were wide and completely serious. _"But_ I did talk her out of being our honorary sister, because I told her that would mean that she was the honorary granddaughter of Magneto, and she didn't like that."

Billy sniggered slightly. "Riiiight," he said, grinning knowingly at his brother. (Despite what Tommy claimed about not having emotions, he was actually great with young children, and easily took up the role of older brother to the youngest Runaway, and Billy speculated that Tommy sometimes played babysitter to her while the other Runaways were busy.) "Well, did we forget anyone?"

"Well," Tommy considered, tilting his head and stroking his chin, a strangely mischievous light in his gaze, "last time I checked, Nico and Victor seemed to be becoming an item, which means that Nico could potentially end up as our aunt." His eyes glanced over Billy's face, gaging his brother's reaction.

Billy blinked back at him and his jaw dropped slightly. "..." he managed.

"Yeah, I know," Tommy snickered, before reaching over and grabbing the clipboard and pen from his brother's hands, saying, "Let me see that family tree you drew up." Tapping the pen in a blur against his thigh, he considered the paper. "So, it looks like our family consists of, including ourselves, a total of three current Avengers, four former Avengers, two major supervillains, two inhumans, two robots, three Runaways, three witches, two speedsters, six mutants, an elemental, an empath, and almost all of them have been considered terrorists at one time or another."

"Yeah, I guess that pretty much sums it up," Billy agreed, snorting.

"We have the most fucked-up family ever," Tommy stated dryly.

Billy's eyebrows furrowed, lips pursing in thought. "How about Wolverine's family?" he suggested, "Sabretooth and Daken and Romulus?"

"No way," Tommy shook his head. "Not as fucked up as ours."

"Yeah, I guess not," Billy concurred, lips twisting upwards in a smirk that could be described as appearing rather smug.

"Oh! And I almost forgot!" Tommy exclaimed, jumping to his feet as he quickly scribbled another name on the page. Billy looked at him curiously, and Tommy glanced at him, an impish smirk dancing over his features as he explained: "Deadpool asked if he could be our weird uncle."

"_What?!" _

Tommy couldn't help but laugh at the look of utter consternation on Billy's face.

"Take a look at our family," Tommy said, stuffing the clipboard with family tree into Billy's hands, pointing in a speedy blur at all the names written there. "He'd fit right in! And you also forgot to put down Doctor Doom as an almost step-father." The speedster quickly took back the clipboard, scribbling down Doom's name and his status as 'Almost-Step-Father' before roughly shoving the page back at his brother with a conceited grin. "Ha!"

Taking in the family tree they'd drawn up, Billy groaned, face falling into his hands. "We're going to fail any background checks," he remarked through his fingers, tone wry.

"Well, you could always put the Kaplans on here, to make things slightly more pleasant," Tommy offered, twiddling the pen in his fingers. "But the Shepherds would just nullify that effect."

Billy's hands removed themselves from his face and he looked at his twin questioningly.

Tommy however wasn't really paying attention to him, busy as he was pacing back and forth across the bedroom floor, tossing the pen into the air and catching it as he declared: "You know what? The Shepherds don't count. They were less my family than Doctor Doom. I'm disowning them. I'm not Tommy Shepherd. I'm Tommy Maximoff," he grabbed the family tree off his brother's lap, scribbling out his last name and writing 'Maximoff' in its place. Then he handed the clipboard back to Billy with a smirk that was equal parts self-satisfied, defiant, and grim. "Suits me much better, don't you think?"

Billy regarded him for a long moment, evaluating.

By this time, Tommy had long since gotten bored, and had unceremoniously dropped the clipboard and pen onto the bed, and was, for the time being, entertaining himself by trying on all Billy's hats and scarves on in front of the mirror, turning this way and that, before putting the articles of clothing back and grabbing others to try on.

"You can't change your name legally till you're, like, eighteen or something," Billy said finally.

"Hmm?" Tommy glanced at him, blinking as he tried to think back to what they'd been talking about, his brain having long since left that conversation behind. When he remembered a split-second later, he just shrugged, saying, "Whatever, I'll get Daredevil to help me with the paperwork. Everybody knows he's really the blind lawyer Matthew Murdock."

Billy decided not to argue, letting the subject drop. "No, you are not allowed to 'borrow' my hats or scarves," he said instead. "And don't forget to put on the tree that Teddy Altman is my fiancé."

Humming, Tommy zipped over to the clipboard and added Teddy's name. "Speaking off," he said conversationally, tossing the family tree back down, "when you get married, is he gonna be Teddy Kaplan, or are you gonna be Billy Altman? You know, I just realized that 'Altman' and 'Kaplan' almost rhyme." He tapped a finger over his lips thoughtfully. "Or you could change your name to Maximoff, and then you could be Billy Maximoff, and he could be Teddy Maximoff. Hey," he looked at his brother, raising his white eyebrows. "When you have your wedding, are you gonna invite all our relatives? Because I'm not sure inviting Ultron is the best idea. Although," he smirked, "if he had facial expressions, I'd love to see his face when he got the invitation saying that his _grandson_ was getting married. To Kree-Skrull, no less!" Tommy crowed, and Billy just shook his head, facepalming.

"Brother, you're impossible."

"Gotta add 'alien' to the list of 'kinds of crazy people who are in our family,'" Tommy went on, tapping his fingers as if he were counting on them. "We've only got one alien, right? Do Inhumans count as aliens?"

"No, they're superhumans," Billy said immediately, eyes lighting up as he got a chance to talk about fanboy stuff, and impart this knowledge to his twin. "They only moved to the moon recently. Before that they lived at various locations on Earth, and they were originally _Homo sapiens _that the Kree experimented on a long time ago, which gave them their superhuman powers. Oh wait!" His brown eyes grew wide as he remembered something. "Crystal was more recently married to Ronan the Accuser! That makes two aliens, and a third supervillain!"

Tommy could practically see the gears turning behind his brother's eyes as he recalled nerdy, gossipy information, and he groaned loudly, rolling his head back to stare at the ceiling, as if it might have the power to stop Billy's fanboy rant.

But the ceiling held no such power, and Billy continued excitedly on.

"And Crystal, before she married Pietro, was girlfriend to Johnny Storm, the Human Torch from the Fantastic Four, and at another time she was girlfriend to The Sentry, from the Avengers. So we can add a member of the Fantastic Four, and a fifth former Avenger, and maybe the Sentry also counts as a supervillain after what happened at Asgard that time..." Billy trailed off, frowning slightly in recollection.

"You know what? Maybe we shouldn't count boyfriends and girlfriends," Tommy suggested exasperatedly.

"But that gets rid of two supervillains, an Avenger, and a member of the Fantastic Four!" Billy protested, staring at him in outright indignation.

"You're right, it would deplete the insane drama of our already crazy family tree. We'll have to keep 'em," Tommy said monotonously, regarding his brother with crossed arms and an extremely unimpressed expression, foot tapping out of restless habit.

"Can we add Steve Rogers and Simon Williams, because they were in love with Wanda?" Billy asked, brown eyes wide, gleeful, pleading. "Also, Alex Summers, because he and Polaris were together? And then we can add Scott Summers, and Nathan Summers, and Hope Summers, and—!" As Billy went on, his countenance continued to light up animatedly in fanboyish delight, till he was practically bouncing like an excited young child.

He was now grinning and giggling and making those noises that, Tommy had been informed by Kate, were referred to as 'fanboy squees.'"

"If you want to add 'em, you can add 'em," Tommy groaned, tossing the clipboard and pen on his brother before turning away, waving a hand dismissively, maybe even a bit contemptuously. "I don't have the patience to write all that out, and I can't keep track of all those Summers people anyway. And, if you're adding _them,_ and you've already added Johnny Storm, you might as well add Sue Storm, and then you might as well add Reed Richards, and then you might as well add their children, and probably the Thing as well, 'cause he's probably the godfather of those kids or something," Tommy pointed out, tone sardonic. "Anything to make us even more impressive, right?" Tommy rolled his green eyes so far back it hurt slightly. "After this, the next step is just changing your name. 'Billy Maximoff!' Imagine the trepidation that name would instill in people!" His grin was smug and showed teeth.

All of this however was lost on Billy, who was busy scribbling down all the names of all the famous superheros and supervillains they were even distantly related/connected to, no matter how vague the means.

"Do you think we forgot anyone?" he asked after a few moments, examining the family tree they'd written out, pen against his lips.

Dashing over, Tommy glanced over his brother's shoulder, mentally groaning at all the names Billy had written there. "Is there anybody else who would kill us if we _don't_ put their names on our family tree?" he said satirically. "Because I'm pretty sure you got everybody who will kill us _for_ putting their names down."

"Kate?" Billy suggested.

"Yeah, better put her down," Tommy said, face in his hands. "Honorary cousin. You know what? Just stick the entire Young Avengers team on there while you're at it. They're honorary family."

"And I can't forget my little brothers," Billy added, scrawling down all the names as quickly as he could, in the meager amount of white space left on the page.

"Nope, can't forget them," Tommy muttered, before raising his gaze to meet his brother's, expression one of carefully crafted innocence as he asked: "What were their names again?"

"Ha ha," Billy rolled his eyes.

The ceiling really was receiving a lot of glaring. It was almost a wonder it didn't crumble from all the vehemence.

"And Teddy's parents," Billy continued, pen poised. His face lit up again. "That means we can put a Skrull Princess and the original Captain Marvel on here!"

"Can we say: 'our family is totally fucked-up,' again?" Tommy remarked dully.

"Our family is totally fucked-up," Billy agreed, grinning hugely.

Tommy glanced up exasperatedly, gaze tearing at the poor, abused ceiling. "And we're apparently proud of it."

"Apparently," Billy said, smirking at the speedster. "Don't you dare say you're not, 'cause I know you are."

"I have the right to remain silent." Tommy crossed his arms and turned his back to the mage.

Billy just shrugged, rolling his eyes again (he was starting to feel the strain on his eyeballs from doing that repeatedly), before shifting his gaze back down to the page. "Oh, hey!" he exclaimed as another realization came to him. "If we're going with boyfriends and girlfriends, with Scott alone we can add Jean Grey and Emma Frost, and—"

"Ugh! This is turning into gossip! I don't have the patience for this!" Tommy declared, throwing up his hands in exasperation and whirling on his twin.

"—and then we can add Wolverine, because he was in love with Jean—" Billy said distractedly, scribbling down the names as he thought of them, squeezing them into the impossibly small amount of white space that was left on the paper.

Tommy stared at him in dreary amazement. "You are totally geeking out right now," he said. "How do you even know all the people who dated who? That's seriously creepy, bro."

Billy was bent over the clipboard, dark hair falling into his face, utterly absorbed in his task and not paying attention to his brother. "And if we add Wovlerine, then we can add all these other people, like—"

"At this rate, your gonna put down the names of ever single hero, anti-hero, and villain in the entire universe," Tommy commented satirically.

"—and that means we can add—"

"That's it!" Tommy said, throwing up his hands and turning away. "I'm leaving. You have fun with that."

Tommy sped away in a streaking blur and a whoosh of wind. Billy's bedroom door slammed.

Billy just stared at the family tree he was working on, the page so completely filled with names written in black ink that it was nearly impossible to read anything. He'd run out of room, and he hadn't even gotten everybody's names down yet.

"—I think I'm going to have to redo this on a larger piece of paper," he said.

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><p><strong>EDIT: The awesome <strong>Ophelia Lokisdottir** actually drew up Billy and Tommy's family tree from this story, and it's absolutely amazing and I love it, and if you enjoyed this story I highly suggest you check it out! You can find the link on my profile page, under the heading: Concerning the YOUNG AVENGERS :3  
><strong>


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